Even though being a professional film critic is part of my job, it’s impossible to see every movie. Not only have I not seen every movie for the decade I’ve been doing this job, but there are numerous “classics” that, for one reason or another, I have simply never gotten around to seeing. One of those films is Steven Spielberg’s iconic Jaws.
I know, I know, I’m not entirely sure why I never saw it either, but even though Jaws is 50 years old, and I’m almost 50 years old, the two of us had never crossed paths before. With the Fourth of July weekend here, and the golden anniversary for Steven Spielberg’s iconic film, it seemed like the right time to deal with this cinematic oversight. So I fired up my Peacock subscription and finally watched Jaws, and honestly, I’m glad I waited so long.
I Never Watched Jaws Because I Felt Like I Already Had
Jaws is basically a horror movie. The massive shark is essentially playing the role Jason does in the Friday the 13th movies. I haven’t seen many of those films either because they just don’t interest me.
drop some choice Jaws quotes.
If Jaws had come up in a conversation last week, I have zero doubt I could have pretended like I had seen it and totally fooled anybody into believing I had. Now that I have seen it, I realize just how much of the movie I already knew by heart.
Steven Spielberg is an incredible director” isn’t exactly a revolutionary statement, but watching Jaws, I think I came to understand that truth in a way that I never really had before. While I haven’t seen every Steven Spielberg movie, I have seen most of them. I know just how incredible a director he is, but I really saw it while watching Jaws.
I was probably less engaged by the plot of Jaws than I would have been if I had watched it 40 years ago, specifically because I knew what was going to happen at basically every turn. As such, I found myself really watching the camera, following the way it told the story. I paid attention to the way the story was put together in the edit because while I knew what would happen, that didn’t mean I knew everything about how that story would be shown to the audience.
Normally if I find myself thinking about the edit of a film on my first watch, it’s because something is horribly wrong with it and it’s become distracting from the story. I want to be engaged by a narrative just like everybody else, and while I’ll often pick up on little filmmaking details on a first watch, it’s often more subconscious.
Here, I was able to really see why Jaws won the Oscar for Film Editing, a prize that is clearly deserved for the way the edit builds the tension around a killer shark that famously didn’t work most of the time, and thus is rarely seen. I enjoyed John Williams’ score, which is so much more than the Jaws theme we all know and love.
Jaws Has Reinforced My View On Spoilers
I also really enjoyed Jaws as a story. While I knew the plot and had seen a large portion of the movie in various scenes over almost 50 years, there was plenty more that was new to me. Some of the scenes that don’t get endlessly replayed were among my favorites in the film, and they all come together to tell a compelling story that is truly excellent, as its reputation indicates.
In my job, getting spoiled on movies is par for the course. I rarely walk into a blockbuster film without some sort of an idea of what’s about to happen on screen. Yet despite knowing almost everything that was about to happen in Jaws, it didn’t make the movie any less enjoyable.
Not knowing what’s going to happen next in a movie is great. A little surprise certainly doesn’t hurt. But even if you know what’s about to happen, if the filmmakers have done their job right, it won’t matter. It’s not about what happens so much as how well it’s done. Everything in Jaws is well done, even five decades later.